No agreement with European legal aid convention

By Christiane Schulzki Haddouti

Echelon state Great Britain blocks monitoring plans of European
investigators.

The negotiations for a European legal aid convention stagnate. At an October
29 meeting of the council on law and the interior in Luxembourg the Ministers
again could reach no agreement. On the question of the telecommunications
monitoring the British government sets its own course.

Advisers had compiled a new suggestion before in order to finally reach a
decision here. In Great Britain there is no clear separation between the
hearing measures, which are in some cases accomplished by the police and
customs authorities and in other cases with the help of intelligence services.
Therefore Great Britain, which for signal interception is a member of the
UKUSA agreement, wants to absolutely prevent making surveillance material
of the intelligence service available to other member states.

In their final communique the European heads of government agreed in Tampere
that Finland will compile a compromise recommendation: Through it there is
to be defined who and with which authority hearing measures may be involved,
and which criminal data are to be seized by way of it. One problem of the
report on mutual obligation seems unresolved: The British delegation had
suggested that the possibility that a supervising member state should be
granted the right to refrain from complying with the request of another member
state for reasons of "national security".

The suggestion has a piquant background: As a member of the Echelon interception
arrangement Great Britain hears world-wide satellite communication together
with the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand , according to two STOA reports
which were prepared by the European Parliament. The regulation suggested
by the British delegation would have guaranteed the further secrecy of
reconnaissance results which are obtained over the Echelon system. However,
if Great Britain would be legally forced to send the other member states
results from these monitoring measures these would be seen by the overseer.

Therefore it is unacceptable to Great Britain an alternative suggestion of
the other member states according to which it can be agreed upon that the
information which can be communicated is passed on "over special channels
if secrecy is needed". For Great Britain it is certain that independently
of whether the monitoring for the purpose of a criminal law investiagtion
is kept secret or not, it must be accomplished in a way to assure the security
of theintelligence services.

Therefore the Council is now examining whether Great Britain in regard to
telecommunications monitoring will not participate in the legal aid convention.
Interestingly enough the president of the committee of the Permanent
Representatives in Brussels arrived at the conclusion that "nonparticipation
may be authorized when representatives of a member state could not be present
to oversee the monitoring." An appropriate clause should be taken up if the
negotiations with Great Britain fail.

The telecommunications monitoring is to be advised after the Luxemburg meeting
again in the committee of the Permanent Representatives and in the Article-36
Committee.